When the planets align, we will have the right president
When the Star Trek Federation needs a leader, we will have the right president
When the Republicans come bleating like sheep and bleeding like people
We will have the right president

When we realize that we have no more sons and daughters to give
When we see that our economy has given all of itself to China
When we lose our homes and feel like those who have lost their homes before us
We will have the right president

When we’ve blustered and flustered our way through a country
When we’ve rattled our sabers to the point where no one listens
When we’ve bled ourselves dry and not acknowledged just who is bleeding
We will have the right president

Right?

No.  Not right.

Never right again.

Turn left at the next stop sign.  And stay left.
Turn left and you will be home.

Something Joe Biden said tonight really hit a chord within me.

Too tired to look it up (it’s 11:40 pm EST right now), I’ll try to paraphrase it. He said, basically, that our grandparents are hoping that we will have the same opportunities and chances to get ahead that they themselves had, but the Republicans have hurt those chances, and now none of us are able to get ahead unless we’re rich.

Now, that made me think of my grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1904 near New York City. His first job was as a runner on Wall Street. He was 6 foot 4 inches tall and nicknamed “Pinkie”. He started as a runner but became so enthralled by the business and commerce going on around him, that he quickly was promoted and he kept on moving up until he was a partner in his own stock brokerage firm by the time my mother was born in the late 1930’s.

My grandfather always remained humble. Yes, he loved golf, hotels and country clubs, but he always knew the name of every attendant, every maid, every valet, every waitress, every busboy. And he tipped -- generously. Not just with money, but with advice. He was the most humble rich man I’ve ever known.

He was rich, but never forgot his roots.

Okay, so I had a rich grandfather. You’d think I was Paris Hilton, right? But my grandfather’s inheritance is a family trust, in the care of my mother, and quite frankly: I want no part of it, because it would mean losing my mother to get it.

So I do like my sisters do, and I work and get by on my own. I do like my grandfather did. I work and get by on my own.

What always strikes me is when I get that annual letter from our Social Security division, that shows me what I’ve saved, what I will earn, and -- my favorite part-- what I have already earned.

I look at the first year listed, 1980-something, and I earned a whopping $300. The next year, it was over $1000. The next two years there was hardly any income, but that’s because I attended a one-year secretarial college and didn’t work. The next year, my salary increased to almost $20,000.

And it’s been growing ever since.

That’s how it was for my grandfather. And that is how it should be.

But when my grandfather was my age, he was already married with two children, and he was wealthy. He had savings accounts and investments in stocks and bonds. My grandfather was able to send his son to college, and his daughter to boarding school and college. My grandfather was able to do all of that because the economy allowed for it, after the post WWII boom.

Me, I’ve worked my way up, just like he did, but I can’t afford a child, and I don’t have any savings account to speak of other than my 401K.

Joe Biden said tonight that for the past 25 years or so, most people are in the same boat as me. And he named the reason. And the reason is the Republican Party.

My grandfather was a staunch Republican. It worked for him, I suppose. But it sure as heck didn’t work for me.

That’s why I work for Obama.